Human Resource Blog

FMLA does not really work on an accrual system — it is all or nothing.

An employee must have worked for the employer for 12 months in the past 7 years, in order to qualify for FMLA. In addition, the employee must have worked 1,250 hours (or more) in the past 12 months. There are no exceptions.

An employee who has worked for the employer for 11.9 months does not qualify, even if they have worked much more than 1,250 hours. An employee who has worked for the employer more than 12 months, but has worked only 1,249 hours in the past 12 months, does not qualify for FMLA.

Yes, the employee will qualify for FMLA to take her daughter to prenatal doctors appointments and no the employee will not qualify for time off to care for the baby, unless she is the babys legal guardian.

The FMLA permits an employee to take time off to provide physical and psychological care for a close family member with a serious health condition. Pregnancy and childbirth are always serious health conditions. However, the close family members are limited to a) spouse b) son or daughter under the age of 18 and c) parent. In this case, the employee can take time off to care for her daughter under 18, who has a serious health condition.

FMLA permits a parent to take time off to care for a baby, within the childs first year of life. However, that coverage does not apply to caring for a grandchild, regardless of the age of the mother. So once the baby is born, the employees entitlement to FMLA ends. The exception would be if the grandparent were the babys guardian.

Except for certain medical information, there is no requirement that HR keep anything confidential. An HR person is not the employees priest, or their lawyer.

We are not clear from your question exactly what type of information is being relayed here. It could be problems with a workprocessing program, or it could be problems with profanity in the workplace, or other problems. However, there is no law that requires that any of those be kept secret.

Some companies have the policy that they try to keep HR matters confidential whenever possible. However, often it is not possible. And other companies do not even have that policy. HR pros work for the employer — they are not hired by the employee. Therefore, many employers see it as appropriate for the HR department to share any and all information with supervisors.

It is true that Oklahoma does not have any law that would require you as an employer to give breaks to workers. This includes meal breaks, rest breaks and smoke breaks. Because of this, you could eliminate all breaks if you wanted.

However, if you are covered by the federal FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act, then you must pay workers for breaks shorter than 20 minutes, under federal law. The FLSA does not require that employers give breaks — but it does require that employers who choose to give breaks shorter than 20 minutes pay workers for them. The FLSA covers employers with annual revenue over $500,000. It also covers employees engaged in interstate commerce. If you are covered by the FLSA (the federal minimum wage and overtime law) then you can require that employees clock out for smoke breaks, but every employee must be paid for every break that is less than 20 minutes. Usually, this includes smoke breaks.

If you are not covered by the federal FLSA then your policy of not paying for smoke breaks is legal.

Frankly, what most employers do is permit all employees the same number of breaks, whether they smoke or not. Employees are given an unpaid meal break of 30 minutes to one hour, plus a 10 to 15 minute rest break in the morning and afternoon. Smokers are permitted to smoke only during that time. Employees who take additional breaks are subject to discipline or termination.

Giving extra breaks to smokers is bound to result in poor employee morale among non-smokers.

And yes, you should always require that employees clock out if they are running an errand. But you should also require that they only run errands on their lunch break.  

This will depend upon your company policy, and what state you are in. A handful of states would require that you pay the employee for his vacation, but not sick leave. He would be entitled to payment only for vacation time earned — meaning time he was entitled to use on his last day of work.

In other states, the employee would be entitled only to payment for benefits as designated under company policy. It is very unusual for an employee to be paid for accrued but unearned vacation, except in California.

Different rules apply in California.